SKETCH OF FREDERICK WARD PUTNAM. 697 



of the value of the " Proceedings of the Essex Institute," of the " An- 

 nual Reports of the Trustees of the Peabody Academy of Science," 

 and of the annual volumes of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, Vols. XXII-XXXIV, is due to his careful edi- 

 torial supervision. Putnam also was one of the original editors and 

 published Vols. I-IX of the " American Naturalist." 



While brief papers are continually appearing in various scientific 

 serials, it is to the annual reports of the great museum, of which he is 

 the head, that Putnam gives his principal attention. Already ten of 

 these have been published under his direction, and others are in prep- 

 aration. It is scarcely necessary to add that they contain an immense 

 fund of invaluable archaeological knowledge, and must, of necessity, 

 be accessible to every one who would have a thorough knowledge, so 

 far as it can be obtained as yet, of ancient man in America. 



A perusal of these reports and a careful examination of the muse- 

 um's collections at once show the eminent fitness of the man for the 

 place, the method of conducting exploration and exhibiting the re- 

 sults thereof being that which a zoologist adopts in treating of a purely 

 zoological problem. It is not the design of the museum merely to 

 group a vast amount of material together, in series of like objects, to 

 show how varied is man's handiwork, but to let associated objects, 

 as they occur, tell the story of the people who used them. This was 

 the view taken by Professor Wyrnan in collecting the remains of 

 ancient man from the Florida shell-heaps he would have removed a 

 shell-heap, bodily, to the museum, had it been practicable and in 

 this spirit, with by no means sufficient funds to carry on the work, 

 Putnam has continued to labor, and succeeded in gathering a quarter 

 of a million objects from every nook and corner of America. 



Recently, the trustees of the Peabody Museum, in carrying out the 

 objects of Mr. Peabody's trust one of which was the establishment 

 of a professorship of American archaeology and ethnology unani- 

 mously nominated Putnam for the position, and the corporation of 

 Harvard College established the professorship. 



The mantle of the late lamented Jeffries Wyman could have fallen 

 on no worthier, abler shoulders than those of Frederick Ward Putnam. 



